


To Serve Woman (PG-rated)

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Series: Paternoster Row: the spinoff [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Blood, Cannibalism, F/F, Gen, Minor Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:23:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1526261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny and Vastra take on what promises to be a routine assignment. But the truth is far grislier than they imagined.</p><p>This is the longer, PG-rated version of this story. It is tied into an ongoing series of stories, unlike the previous stand-alone version. It obviously borrows heavily from the original, but overall it is a different story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Serve Woman (PG-rated)

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for a lot of things: violence, blood, discussions of cannibalism, minor character death. This is definitely a darker fic, so be warned. But when you have one character who eats sentient beings of a certain species and has a wife/servant/friend/lover from that same species, well, there's a lot going on there to explore. 
> 
> Title a riff on the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man

“Mr. Henderson to see you, madame.” Jenny curtseys as a heavyset, well-dressed man enters the parlor, hat in hand. Vastra gestures subtly, and he takes a seat opposite Vastra. Jenny sweeps in with teapot and cups and saucers before settling into the corner of the room where she can observe and overhear the conversation without being readily noticed by Henderson. 

“Madame Vastra, I hope you will forgive me, but I wish to move directly to my business with you.” She inclines her head slightly. If she had her way, she would not have to deal with Henderson at all, but their clients have come to expect the personal touch and in most cases it is useful. “I am the agent of a meat processing concern: some slaughtering, some packing, a bit of sausage-making...” He pauses, seems to realize he is rambling, and catches himself. “A new competitor has moved into a nearby facility, and unusual noises have been coming from within. Nobody goes in or out. The company I represent believes they may have some new and more efficient method or practice. My employer would like to retain your unique services to find out what these upstarts are doing, and how they are doing it, and otherwise... inconvenience them.” He leans forward. “We would, of course, be willing to pay handsomely.”

Vastra correspondingly leans back, closing her eyes and steepling her hands. “If you would be so good as to withdraw to the sitting room, I shall consider your proposal; I shall not detain you long.” Once he had left, Jenny slouches into the chair he has abandoned and Vastra pulls up her veil. “Industrial espionage and sabotage,” Jenny spits with more metaphorical than actual venom. Sadly, that is one skill which she has been unable to learn from Vastra.

“Not the most honorable profession, but I suppose it pays the bills.” Jenny nods reluctantly. “And it might just be a lead—I did ask Henry and Nellie to poke around abandoned industrial sites like these. At any rate we may learn more about the world of modern industry.”

“I suppose if it may bring us one step closer to that dratted, elusive Dalek, it will be worthwhile. I only hope that we do succeed in defeating that deadly foe; not only for our own sake, but for the sake of the clients we've had to take: first a bookie, now a corporate thug.” Jenny's face sours. “And to shut down a couple of poor hoaxers and con artists, and now spy on what might well be an honest businessman?” Jenny harrumphs, and Vastra remains motionless. “So much for fair play.”

“Still, we are not so well established as we can pick and choose our clientele for their virtue. Unfortunately, such moral worth seems not to automatically coincide with one's material worth. Though perhaps I should not be surprised.”

“There are certainly some folks who would be,” Jenny says through gritted teeth. “Reckon their success is a just blessing from the Almighty, which is a bit rich from a God who says the poor shall inherit the earth.” Vastra bats at Jenny's arm for the awful pun, and sends her to fetch in Henderson. “The usual contract, then, madame?” Vastra nods. They charge more to clients who can afford it; they would worry about this fact getting out save that so many of their clients desire secrecy above all else, and it seems this one will be no exception. Indeed, secrecy has become a standard term, for rich and poor clients alike. Jenny walks briskly back to their offices, and then out to the sitting room to fetch Henderson. The sooner they begin this case, the sooner she can be shut of it.

***

Before they investigate themselves, they want to talk to one of their client's employees, just to get an idea of what to expect. “It's a bloody business, meat-packing,” Graham, the lucky volunteer, says. He rests his hands, less one finger, unselfconsciously on the table. Jenny thinks she will be off sausage and ground beef for the rest of her life. 

“I worked in a match factory for a few months,” Jenny says sympathetically. 

“Glad you got out,” Graham says with a slow nod. “Enough to put me off smoking, that was.” He shrugs. “But what can you do? Gotta eat.” He describes the different machines and processes until they have a fair idea of what they should expect from a usual factory and no appetite.

“I think I am just as glad to get most of my meat free-range, so to speak,” Vastra observes once he is gone.

“I think I'll have a salad for dinner,” Jenny replies. 

***

“Strax, mind the carriage and stand lookout.” Vastra resists the urge to immediately destroy the deception of a well-to-do woman and her servant out for an evening walk by leaping from the carriage into a ready crouch, and instead steps down, taking care to keep her visage concealed beneath her veil and hat, permitting herself the use of Jenny's arm as a brace. “Simple observation tonight, my love,” she whispers as Strax mutters something about laser whips. Nellie has been asking around, but on some occasions, there is no substitute for first-hand observation. Particularly since Vastra has a grim feeling about this assignment. Jenny nods and squeezes her arm before releasing it and following at an appropriate distance. The pair walk through the foggy London night, tracing a tangled circuit which would have appeared random to any but the most diligent observer but in fact passes by the industrial building in question several times from every angle. 

“Madame?” Jenny whispers, as sickly, yellow-green light spills from the gaps in the boarded-up windows. “That doesn't look human. Or sound human.”

“Or smell human,” Vastra agrees, though the smell of blood from the meat-packing district is an awful distraction. “Come, my sweet; we shall have to pay a return visit tomorrow once we have traded our dresses for our hunting clothes.” 

***

They return the next night, concealed beneath heavy cloaks: Silurian armor, catsuits, swords, and all. Jenny produces a lockpick, and a moment later they are inside. 

It is Jenny who first places what is so very wrong about the inside of the warehouse. The alien machinery, of course, is almost second nature to them at this point. Not clever Vastra, but Jenny, Jenny Flint the maid, who handles the errands and the buying and spends time at the butcher's, who notices... “Madame...none of these cuts of meat look familiar.” She is interrupted by what she sees as she turns the corner: a human torso, separated from the head and limbs, lying on a table. “Oh..oh, no.” Jenny, who has been Vastra's faithful companion through dark adventures, who has taken dozens of lives in battle, is suddenly sick, and she empties herself onto the crude floor, over and over, until there is nothing left. Even her eyes seem hollowed out. “Madame?”

“Yes, Jenny?”

“Permission to kill everything that breathes in this shambles?”

“Permission granted.”

***

First things first, they unlock the cage full of humans, presumably waiting to be fattened for the slaughter. Men, women, children, babes in arms: whoever is doing this lacks a discerning palate. And a soul, Jenny is inclined to believe. And then it is time to put away the lockpicks and take out the swords.

They round up the aliens responsible for...this...easily enough, and herd them together into one room. “Androgums,” Vastra's voice hisses the name like a curse. They are massively obese, with garish hair and a pungent stink that even pierces the reek of blood and decay below. “Which of you is the leader?” There is a brief moment of argument and hesitation. “Tell me now, or I'll kill you slowly.” Vastra doesn't yell, doesn't scream, but the room falls to a hush and one of the corpulent aliens steps forward from his six fellows. Vastra's eyes flash over to Jenny's, and the two of them work like lightning, slashing the throats of the other six Androgums. “Your death can be that swift if you tell us what we need to know quickly,” Vastra says.

“But the longer you make us wait, the more creative we get,” Jenny adds, wiping the blood from her blade meaningfully. 

“For starters, is this all of your company?” Vastra begins.

The Androgum's eyes never leave Vastra's steel. “Yes—we never left—too scared of getting caught.”

“How did you get all those people, then?” Jenny presses.

“Other humans—willing to sell at a fair price.”

“If you even think about telling me that because you bought them you can do what you like with them, I'll feed you into the sausage grinder feet first.” The Androgum gulps at Jenny's threat.

“Do you have books?” Vastra continues with the interrogation.

“Yes, yes!” The Androgum, clearly too terrified to lie, pulls every piece of paper in their living quarters into a pile on a bedsheet. Jenny gathers it into a bundle to take with them. The job they have been hired to do will be done soon, but they have much work ahead of them.

“Thank you,” Vastra says as she slits his throat. “A far kinder death than an Androgum deserves. They live only to slake their hunger, constantly sampling new foodstuffs: including sentient races, when they can lay hands upon them.” She wipes her sword and her hands clean on another sheet. “I feel scarcely better than those we slaughtered. Let us make this place into a funeral pyre and be gone.”

They leave and watch as the anonymous remains are commended to the sky. “Reminds me of our first real adventure together, with the circus,” Jenny says at last. “I didn't understand how you could cover something like that up. But now...I think there are some things best left unknown, best kept hidden. Does that make me a worse person?”

“It means only that you have grown, and changed, and learned, which are some of the finest things anyone can do.” Vastra pauses and watches the billowing smoke. “But I cannot say that I am proud of what we have done...and yet I feel it was just and necessary.”

“At least we saved some people,” Jenny says at last. “That has to count for something, right, madame?” 

“Let's...let's go home, Jenny. I require a bath, and I expect you will want one as well. And then sleep if we can, for I expect there will be more bloody work ahead of us in the days to come.” Vastra resists the urge to snap at Strax's jaunty, belligerent greeting, and the Sontaran mercifully drives them home in silence, not questioning Jenny's sobs or Vastra's occasional tremors.

It takes them an hour of scrubbing before they feel clean enough to crawl into bed.

***

“I would not have thought the prospect of eating your own kind would have posed such an upsetting tableau to you, or, indeed, to me,” Vastra begins, once they were undressed and in bed, yet not ready for sleep. “Especially not given my own eating habits. I am most perplexed, but perhaps you may enlighten me.”

Jenny's eyes are dry now, and she rests her head on Vastra's shoulder. “It doesn't really, ma'am. Just...” She lays there silently, breath caught in her mouth. “When you do it, it's a murderer, usually in a fair fight. Well,” and she allows herself a smile, her good nature unable to be suppressed for long, “as fair as a fight with you on one side. But that,” she shivers, and Vastra draws her closer as though she is capable of heating her warm-blooded wife. “That was a massacre. Of people. Real, living, thinking, loving people.” Jenny's gaze drifts into the past. “People talk about humanity, or of someone being inhuman, but that doesn't work in the business we do. Reminds me of that nonsense with the dictionaries,” and Vastra makes a mental note that they have yet to discern the answer to that riddle. “But you're people, and I'm people. Even the Doctor is people, I think, though I don't always know that he'd agree with me...but someone who could do that, or the killers we've hunted...they're not people.” Vastra smiles, somber, but always astounded at how wise Jenny can be despite her lack of formal education (a lack she is, admittedly, still trying to remedy). She isn't quite sure what to say when Jenny surprises her once again.

“Vastra?” The use of her proper name is shocking enough. “Will you eat me? If I should die before you?”

“Jenny, I...” Vastra stammers, and though her love looks her in the eyes, there are no answers there. 

“Because if I'm going to be dead anyway—goodness, we have gotten onto a macabre turn, ma'am!” and Jenny laughs “then I think I'd like to know that I fixed you one last meal, so to speak.”

“I will think about it,” Vastra replies, still uneasy. She knows she is likely to outlive Jenny by a fair margin if chance or the gods do not intervene, and this hangs somewhat guiltily over her at the best of times. “But please, do not raise the issue again.” Jenny nods, and they kiss, and settle fitfully to sleep.

***

The next morning, still in their dressing gowns, they pore through the papers they have stolen. Mr. Henderson stops by to say that his employer has wired the funds to them, with an additional bonus for taking care of the matter so thoroughly and promptly. They pawn him off on Strax who deals with him as perfunctorily as is still within the bounds of politeness. Much of the information appears unhelpful, but they sift through it anyway, making piles of possible leads. Vastra's eyes widen when she opens one particular tome.

“What is it, ma'am?”

“A cookbook. Designed for humans.” She coughs. “As the primary foodstuff, that is.”

Jenny scowls. “Throw it in with the rest of the garbage, then.”

“But it might come in handy! Say what you will about the Androgums, but they are true gourmets. Eating criminals raw is all well and good, but stewed or roasted might make a nice change!” 

She can't tell if Vastra is being serious, Jenny realizes. “Are you going to eat me?” she asks at last. Well, two can play at that game.

“Jenny, please!”

“Are you going to eat me!?” she shouts. “Not when I'm old and dried-up, but while I'm still young and juicy?” 

In a flash, Vastra is behind her, long tongue out and tasting her, teeth nipping at her throat, grazing the skin. “Is that what you want?” she hisses. “Is that all you think you are to me?” One clawed hand digs lightly into Jenny's flesh. “Just a piece of meat? Do you not yet know that you are worth whole worlds to me, my beautiful, precious ape? That I would trade all I have and more for your sake?” Usually she prefers the cold light of reason, but Vastra's blood is up now. “That I would gladly go back into the darkness and never see the light of day touch my home for you? That I would—that I have!—forsaken my people to be with you?” Vastra stops to draw ragged breaths and Jenny clings to her.

“And I love you, my wonderful reptile,” Jenny says at last. She grins. “You can keep the cookbook if you like—I never could refuse you anything. And now it will be a bit of a memento.” She sets the cookbook aside in its own little pile. “Let's sort through the rest of these files and see if we can find anything definite. And then,” she notes their disarray with a laugh, “we should get dressed.”

“I should like to talk to our Peculiars once we have finished,” Vastra says. “I wish to make certain that our moral compasses are calibrated properly before we go further.”

Jenny nods. “I like the sound of that, madame.”

***

Another hour sees them finish poring over the Androgum documents and identify a few fairly solid leads. Another hour after that, and they are dressed and fed and as ready as they can be. They call in Henry and Nellie and Anaya, and explain the past day's events, sparing no detail. They caution them first, of course, as best they can, but all three stick it through to the end, until finally, faces drawn, they step aside to deliberate.

“I have much more sympathy for those we apprehend and send to trial,” Vastra says after the first few moments.

“I'd have sympathy for the devil if he had to wait to be judged by some of his only friends like this,” Jenny quipped.

“You mustn't make anachronistic jokes like that,” Vastra chides her, but both women laugh nervously.

At last, the three young people return, Henry at their head. “I've been used as a piece of meat,” he reminds them, and they all shudder at their home's previous use. “So if anyone can absolve you, it might be me. And I do,” he adds quickly, not making them wait. “It's not like you could bring them to trial. And if you did, they'd all hang anyway. And you didn't actually torture any of them. And you saved a whole lot of people. And, probably most importantly, you were able to recognize that you were veering close to the line without crossing it.”

Vastra, who has had her eyes closed while Henry was speaking, opens one tentatively. “You aren't going to say anything about the fact that I sometimes eat people?”

Anaya and Nellie look at each other and shrug. “I was raised Hindu,” Anaya began.

“And I was raised Catholic,” Nellie continues.

“But I don't expect her to avoid beef,”

“And I don't expect her to give up meat for Lent,” Nellie concludes. “You might be people, as Jenny puts it, but you aren't human.”

“It's really creepy,” Anaya affirms, “but if you're going to kill them anyway, you might as well get some use out of the body instead of leaving it to rot, like the way medical students practice on cadavers.” Anaya blinks. “I've been spending too much time with Dr. Doyle.” They all laugh awkwardly. 

“Our point is,” Henry continues, keeping them back on track, “We don't expect you to be bound by our moral laws, no matter how obvious they seem to us at first.”

“Thank you,” Vastra says quietly. “I must say, I did not know what to expect.”

“We've seen a lot with you,” Anaya replies, just as quiet. “What do you aim to do now?”

“We've got some ideas as to who might have been selling people to the Androgums,” Jenny says. “So we're going to track them down. And then we're going to kill them. And then we're going to find out who else they've been selling to. And then we're going to kill them. And we'll keep doing that for as long as we have to.”

“I wouldn't expect anything less,” Nellie whispers proudly. Like heroes on a quest, they are. Fighting for what's right instead of gold and glory.

“What do you want us to do?” Henry asks, spoiling for a fight.

Vastra shakes her head. “Keep searching for leads for that blasted Dalek. This may turn out to lead us there—it may need slave labor—but I am not betting on that contingency. And if you hear of any easy-sounding cases that we can handle in between raids, pass them along. I have a suspicion that this will go deeper than we would ever dream.”

***

“Do you think eating people is always wrong?” Henry asks his brothers. He waits, in a fit of consideration, until after they have finished breakfast.

“Planning on starting?” Moses asks dryly. “I can think of a few names.”

“You mean like the Donner party in America?” Bert shrugs. “Beats starving to death.”

“What makes you ask?” Moses prods. “Didn't take you for the ethical philosopher of the family.”

Henry blushes. What can he say? That it just occurred to him? That it came up at work? That would raise some eyebrows. “Oh, just something I read in a penny-dreadful,” he manages. Yes, he thinks, that sounds plausible. And is probably true: he had had quite the taste for the trashy thrillers before he started having more exciting adventures of his own. Someday, he promises himself, he'll tell his brothers the truth in a more direct format than Doyle's adaptations. Watson always delays the publication of his cases, he muses. Perhaps it is too difficult to tell the truth right away.

***

Nellie joins hands with her family—they are all there tonight, including Alison and Jim, and a boy she rather fancies, Graham—as they say Grace. Her mind flashes back to her huddled conference with Anaya and Henry, and to that inimitable phrase of Mr. Dickens': surplus humanity. Poor folks like her, she knew it meant. Jolly thought for Christmastide. Which of the people around her table would she count as surplus? Hardly a good way to do it, unless you started with the murderers and the criminals, like Vastra did, and even then she wanted to hold out the olive branch of forgiveness. She shakes her head as they finish, and takes a roll, fresh from the oven.

***

The next night they ride out, Jenny and Vastra and Strax, armed to the teeth. None of them says a word until they reach the warehouse that the Androgums and their notes indicated as their supplier. Vastra knocks the night watchman out cold and ties him up before dragging him into a corner. Jenny picks the lock in seconds, and they are rewarded by the sight of huge cages like the ones in the Androgum meat processing plant, many of them full. Hundreds of terrified people run out into the black, free night as their rescuers wait, silent and grim-faced. As each employee comes in, Strax clubs him over the head with his rifle. Jenny pores through their limited personnel records to try to figure out who is still missing, and who among today's shift is the highest rank. Vastra gathers everything else up into a proper bag this time. 

Jenny thinks she has identified the ringleader, and slaps him until he rouses. “So. Mr. Patterson? You sell people to aliens for a living?” He glances over at Vastra's swords and Strax's rifle, then nods, very nervously. “Anything you'd like to say? Before we kill the lot of you?”

“Mitchell, the one on the end, he didn't know what we were doing, I swear! He was just the accountant. All we ever told him was units and clients.” Sweat drips into Patterson's eyes. “Jesus, please, he's just a kid.” The vindictive trio exchange looks, then nod, and Strax drags Mitchell over with the night watchman.

“What about a Dalek? Short, metal, cone-shaped. Talks about exterminating things? You sell anyone to something like that?” Patterson nods furiously on the off-chance that this will spare his life. “Where did you deliver them?” Vastra asks in a roar.

“I don't remember!” Patterson shrieks. “I can look it up, in there.” He jerks his head toward the little mountain of paperwork. As Jenny walks toward it, the door flies open.

“We'll handle it from here,” Robert informs them. He and Eliza had their guns drawn and were flanked by two others, also armed and presumably Torchwood. 

“No!” Vastra cries. “Not now!” They are so close, she thinks.

“Please,” Eliza implores them. 

“And what do you plan to do with us?” Jenny asks, unwilling to sheathe her sword just yet.

“You three can go,” Robert tells them, though it is clear he doesn't like it. “Lord knows we'll have enough to do tracking down every lead in that stack of papers. Thanks, by the way,” he concludes with a cruel smile.

“And I think you're still doing far more good than harm,” Eliza added quickly.

“Thanks,” Jenny said emptily. “Don't suppose you'd let us know if you stumble upon a Dalek?” But the four Torchwood operatives have already flowed past them to confiscate the papers and the personnel. “Apparently those two don't know anything,” she informs them. Perhaps Eliza, at least, will hear her.

***

“I feel like I should feel guiltier about leaving them in Torchwood's hands,” Jenny muses as they walk out. 

“Why?” Vastra asks, genuinely curious. “We were planning on killing them, anyway. And I hope that they are just as capable at dealing with alien menaces, up to a single Dalek, as we are.”

“Even so, madame,” Jenny says, and shivers as they reach the carriage.

“Take us home, Strax,” Vastra says. “We've saved lots of people today. Hopefully Torchwood will do no less with what they have learned today.” She sighs, and slumps against Jenny, drawing what comfort she can from her beloved. “And I expect we will be of very little use to anyone dead.”

“Well, we might make decent meals. Meat, potato, and greens.” Jenny's gallows humor brings a few wry laughs. “You think they would have killed us?”

“I think they would have tried,” Vastra replies with a grin. “But I think they would have found they had bitten off more than they can chew.”

“Ugh, madame, you're as bad as I am!” They share a laugh, heartfelt this time.

“I think it is just as well that our Peculiars have stayed with us, my love,” Vastra decides. “Not merely for their assistance or their company, but as reminders of the people we have saved.”

“I'm glad we do count as people,” Jenny jokes.

“You defined it so well, my love; how could you doubt it?”

“More easily some days than others,” Jenny says at last.

“Never do,” Vastra says, and draws Jenny close.

“Nor you, madame,” Jenny replies, snug in Vastra's arms. “So now what?”

“We see what tomorrow brings,” Vastra replies. “With any luck it will bring a happier encounter.”

***

Three days later a note arrives. It is signed 'E' and there is no address. “Everything sorted, but no Dalek found. Best wishes.”

“Well,” Vastra says hesitantly, “I believe that we may close the book on that case.”

“Perhaps we shouldn't tell Dr. Doyle about this one,” Jenny ventures.

“No,” Vastra agrees. “I do not believe he would understand.”

“I meant that it wouldn't sell,” Jenny says with a laugh.

“You are probably right,” Vastra says, and chuckles. “Come, let us see what a new day brings. As I have said before, we can only try to do better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jenny Flint is a Rolling Stones fan; who knew?
> 
> The Donner Party was a group of families who migrated west across North America in 1846-47. As many as 90 people set out; just over half of them survived the hardships of the trip. Essentially, they became trapped by snowy conditions, ran low on food, and were forced to eat their dead in order to survive. It remains one of the great tragedies of the American West.
> 
> "Surplus humanity," is, of course, a quote from Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.


End file.
